Manufactured by Geonovo, the devices were bought to provide protection for staff who work within various sections of the borough’s social care department. A total of 13 are already being used within the children’s sector, with the remaining units to be issued to staff in other sections in the future – following completion of a training programme.
The lone worker handset, described as a lightweight GPS personal tracking device equipped with a combination of high sensitive GPS tracking and two-way GSM communication, has a number of personal safety features designed to address “all the requirements of lone workers”, Romad said.
The devices will be monitored at the Enfield Public Safety Centre (EPSC), in Edmonton, North London. It is a purpose-built combined CCTV control, traffic enforcement and alarm receiving control room set up for the Borough of Enfield and surrounding areas. Control room operators currently monitor over 260 cameras 24/7. The centre also houses Metropolitan Police officers who are based on site full- time to collect and analyse evidence of any incidents.
Lone worker potential in other London boroughs
Alan Gardner, who manages the centre, said that he had decided on deploying lone worker devices after looking at ways to capitalise on monitoring facilities at the EPSC.
He said: “I had been looking at additional ways in which we could capitalise on the superb monitoring facilities we have at the EPSC and lone worker protection seemed to be an obvious choice. The London Borough of Enfield employs so many people who could potentially find themselves in vulnerable situations and the Council of course, regards the safety of its employees to be of paramount importance,”
“I therefore took a long hard look at the various devices on the market and came to the conclusion that the Romad RSP-100 offered the best value in terms of both price and performance.”
Gardner said he intended to offer lone worker protection as a service to other Enfield council departments employing staff who may be at risk, such as school caretakers, as well as other councils.
“We can also offer this service to other councils who may not have their own alarm receiving centre,” he said.
